To kick off the 100-day countdown to the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia™, Telemundo Deportes revealed a series of key updates for its coverage plans as the exclusive Spanish-language home of the largest sporting event in the world. In addition to multiplatform coverage and production updates, Telemundo Deportes announced a line-up of top-tier advertising partners, digital partnerships, more legendary and groundbreaking commentators, and insights of its latest consumer focused study around the FIFA World Cup™.

“We are kicking off the 100-day countdown in a big way to celebrate this historic moment for Telemundo Deportes,” said Ray Warren, President of Telemundo Deportes. “This will be the most consumed and most widely distributed digital event in Spanish-language television history. All of the initiatives announced today support our mission to bring our viewers the most authentic and complete coverage in the history of the tournament.”

Initiatives and updates announced today include:

SPONSORSHIPS

Telemundo Deportes teams up with Coca-Cola®, Sprint and Volkswagen for 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia™ Coverage

Telemundo teams up with Coca-Cola®, Sprint and Volkswagen for the network’s exclusive Spanish-language coverage of the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia™. Match halftimes and post-games will be presented exclusively by Sprint and Coca-Cola, respectively, and Volkswagen will present the network’s primetime show.

As an official FIFA partner, Coca-Cola will be the presenting sponsor of the Telemundo Deportes Post-Game, “El Resumen del Partido,” for all 64 World Cup matches as well as the in-game match clocks. Powerade, also a part of The Coca-Cola Company family of brands, will have brand exposure during the tournament window with socially-led activations.

Sprint will work with Telemundo Deportes as the official halftime sponsor of all 64 matches. Additionally, Sprint will offer their customers an exclusive portal in the Telemundo Deportes En Vivo app that will be home to various content all in one place, inclusive of FIFA content that no one else can provide in Spanish-language.

Volkswagen will bring audiences the best action, highlights and commentary from the tournament as presenting sponsor of the network’s primetime show exclusively dedicated to the FIFA World Cup, airing nightly from 7-8 p.m. ET. Additionally, Volkswagen will have brand presence within each of the 64 matches as well as within Telemundo Deportes livestream coverage. All Volkswagen content will feature the new Jetta and Tiguan models.

MULTIPLATFORM PROGRAMMING & CONTENT:

Original Content in partnership with VICE

As part of Telemundo’s plans to create compelling storytelling around the tournament, the network is partnering with VICE, the world’s leading global youth media brand, to produce short-form features and stories of the interesting, contagious aspects of the culture and fandom that the World Cup brings around the world. The content will air exclusively across Telemundo Deportes’ television coverage during the FIFA World Cup™ and will extend to TelemundoDeportes.com.

“Somos El Mundial” - New Digital Series produced in partnership with the NBCU Digital Lab and BuzzFeed:

As part of Telemundo’s more than 1,000 hours of FIFA World Cup™ content planned across digital platforms, Telemundo Deportes announced a content partnership with NBCU Digital Lab to create “Somos el Mundial,” a digital docu-series to be featured on TelemundoDeportes.com and Telemundo Deportes’ YouTube page. In addition, BuzzFeed will create short-form content from the series to be integrated across its platforms. The series will debut in May and will continue running during the tournament.

“Somos el Mundial” is an intimate profile chronicling the powerful narratives behind the Hispanic World Cup countries as told through the eyes of key players. Each episode will center on an individual country and their upcoming journey to Russia 2018. The primary fabric of each episode will be comprised of interviews with players representing their country at the World Cup. Their interviews will focus on the history of their country as it relates to the tournament – national pride, what it means to be a citizen of this country, their emotions heading into the games, etc.

Telemundo recently announced an exclusive partnership with the global soccer media company Copa90 to create the first-ever Hispanic content creator network focused on soccer. The first stage of the campaign kicked off in early February with a call to fans via Telemundo and Telemundo Deportes’ social media platforms and the COPA90 network, encouraging soccer fans across the U.S. to submit content that showcases what fuels their passion for their national team, and demonstrate how they plan to support their team’s efforts during the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia™.

In two weeks, the program received hundreds of entries from men and women across 19 different states delivering over 5.5 million total impressions across Telemundo Deportes and COPA90 social platforms, reaching 2 million fans. In the next phase, Telemundo and COPA90 will now select 24 finalists who will be tasked to share their stories in real-time during the international friendly matches scheduled to be played across the U.S. late March.

The final selection of influencers will be part of a number of short films that will be created in anticipation of the FIFA World Cup™ and distributed via Telemundo and COPA90’s social media accounts. Influencers and content will be leveraged in Telemundo’s programming and marketing of the FIFA World Cup™ across all platforms.

The Telemundo Station Group is dispatching a team of 11 local station journalists to the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia™, the largest team of local Telemundo journalists to ever report from an international, live sporting event.

The station group team – made up of sports, news anchors and producers from all across the country, representing different U.S. Hispanic constituencies – will round-out Telemundo Deportes’ coverage of the World Cup by delivering the most relevant and compelling coverage about all 32 competing teams, including the teams that are of most importance to local Latino audiences.

With special local shows and segments like “Acceso Rusia,” “Hoy En Rusia,” “Recorriendo Rusia,” and complimented with distinctive local digital content like interactive games, score cards and the ability to watch the games live from the stations’ individual apps through the “Telemundo En Vivo” feature, the Telemundo owned stations will personalize every heart-pumping World Cupmoment for local Latino audiences like never before.

For the first time ever, Telemundo Deportes will introduce the first woman to provide in-match commentary for a FIFA Men’s World Cup in the U.S., regardless of language.

Viviana Vila will serve as analyst for select matches during the tournament joining Telemundo Deportes’ renowned team of play-by-play commentators and analysts. The Argentine sports journalist has been covering soccer for radio and television in her native country since 1999. For the last 17 years, she has been working for Radio Continental de Buenos Aires, contributing to the coverage of local and international soccer. She debuted as a soccer analyst in 2004 alongside one of the most legendary sportscasters in Argentina, Victor Hugo Morales, and has since provided commentary for close to one thousand matches, including tournaments like Copa Argentina, Copa Libertadores and the 2016 UEFA European Championship.

Other additions to the team include iconic soccer personalities who will lend a unique “on-the-pitch” perspective to the commentating team. These names add to the roster of experts announced last year:

Tab Ramos: Former American soccer player who currently serves as head coach of the United States U-20 team and US Soccer Federation’s Youth Technical Director. Over his thirteen-year professional career he played as a midfielder in Spain, Mexico, and the United States. Ramos participated in three FIFA World Cups with the USMNT and was the first player to sign with Major League Soccer where he spent seven years of his career with the MetroStars. He was elected to the National Soccer Hall of Fame in 2005.

Diego Forlán: Uruguayan professional soccer player who currently plays for Hong Kong Premier League club Kitchee. Regarded as one of the greatest Uruguayan players of all time, Forlán has participated in three FIFA World Cups, including the 2010 tournament where Uruguay came in fourth place and he received the Golden Ball as the best player. Through his career he also played for some of Europe’s top clubs including Manchester United, Villarreal, Atletico de Madrid and Inter Milan.

Jesús “Chucho” Ramírez: Former Mexican soccer player who, following his professional career took on the challenge of coaching. He served as manager of the Mexico National Team and won the U-17 World Cup in 2005, becoming the first coach of a Mexican team to achieve a world soccer championship. Ramírez also served as coach of Club América and currently lends his talent as a motivational speaker.

Teófilo Cubillas: Former soccer star considered one of Peru’s greatest players and the country’s all-time leading scorer with 26 goals in 81 matches. He represented Peru in three FIFA World Cups, including the 1970 and 1978 tournaments where he helped the team reach the quarter finals. Cubillas is one of only three players to score five or more goals in two different World Cups, the other two being Miroslav Klose and Thomas Müller.

FAN INSIGHTS STUDY: LA OLA DE LA FIFA

In an exclusive partnership with Horowitz Research, Telemundo unveiled the first phase of findings from the most in-depth consumer research initiative to ever be conducted around the FIFA World Cup™ in the U.S., focused on fandom, culture, technology and brand building.

Findings from the first phase of insights show that 9 out of 10 Hispanic soccer fans plan to watch the FIFA World Cup™ from beginning to end. Most (77%) Hispanic soccer fans plan to watch World Cup matches live on television, but when they can’t catch the matches live, 46% say they will live stream matches and 31% will stream matches on demand, setting up 2018’s World Cup to be the most cross-platform in history.

Telemundo is the network of choice for Hispanic soccer fans, with 7 in 10 saying they plan to watch the World Cup exclusively or mostly on Telemundo. The research reveals that even 1 in 4 non-Hispanics say they plan to watch the World Cup exclusively or mostly on Telemundo, underscoring the fact that the authentic World Cup experience is better “en español.”

The World Cup is one of the greatest expressions of Hispanic identity and fandom. When asked to rank a series of life events in order of excitement, Hispanics rank seeing their country win the World Cup second only to holding their child for the first time. It even out-ranks winning a new car or getting a promotion at work in terms of exciting life events.

Telemundo’s research emphasizes that Hispanic millennials are leading a shift towards soccer in America’s sports culture, with 2 in 3 Hispanic millennials saying they are soccer fans.

In fact, 61% of Hispanic millennial males would risk getting in trouble at work to stay home to watch an important World Cup match; 68% would rather give up all of the rest of the content on TV than give up soccer; and 52% would rather spend the day hanging out with their favorite soccer team than with their own family.

The World Cup is an inherently social experience. More than 80% of Hispanic soccer fans turn the World Cup into a viewing party, or virtual co-viewing. And for close to 80% of Latinos, the tournament will take over the social conversation as they follow memes, comments, and arguments about a match through social media, or post themselves.